Joseph McKenna

Joseph McKenna was a federal appellate judge who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from 1892 to 1897. Born in Philadelphia in 1843 to Irish Catholic immigrant parents, he went on to serve in all three branches of the federal government over the course of his career, including as a member of the United States House of Representatives, as United States Attorney General, and later as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. His appointment to the Ninth Circuit by President Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, in 1892 marked his entry into the federal judiciary and represented a significant transition from his earlier career in electoral politics and prosecutorial work.

Early life and legal career

McKenna was born on August 10, 1843, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the child of immigrants who had come to the United States from Ireland. His family was part of the Catholic community, a detail that would later make him one of a small number of Catholic jurists to serve on the federal bench during his era. He pursued his education at St. Joseph's College and later attended the Collegiate Institute in Benicia, California, reflecting his family's westward migration to the growing state of California.

After gaining admission to the California bar in 1865, McKenna began his legal career in private practice, though this initial phase lasted only about one year. He then transitioned to public service, accepting the position of District Attorney for Solano County, where he gained experience in criminal prosecution and courtroom advocacy. This prosecutorial role provided him with practical legal experience that would inform his later judicial work.

McKenna's ambitions extended beyond the district attorney's office, and he successfully campaigned for election to the California State Assembly, where he served from 1875 to 1877. During his time in the state legislature, he sought the position of Speaker but was unsuccessful in that bid. After completing his term, he chose not to seek reelection immediately, instead returning to other pursuits before eventually setting his sights on federal office.

Following two unsuccessful attempts at election to the United States House of Representatives, McKenna finally won a seat in 1885, beginning what would become four terms of service in Congress. During his tenure in the House, he became known as a strong advocate for Chinese exclusion policies, reflecting the anti-immigrant sentiment that was prevalent in California and other western states during that period. His congressional service lasted until his appointment to the federal judiciary in 1892, marking the end of his career as an elected official and the beginning of his work as a federal judge.

Federal appellate service

President Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, appointed McKenna to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1892. The Senate confirmed his appointment on March 17, 1892, and he took his seat on the court, which had jurisdiction over federal appeals from the western states and territories. McKenna occupied seat CA90102 on the Ninth Circuit and served in this capacity for five years, from 1892 until 1897.

During his tenure on the Ninth Circuit, McKenna handled the full range of federal appellate matters that came before the court, including cases involving federal statutes, constitutional questions, and disputes arising under the court's diversity jurisdiction. His work on the circuit court provided him with experience in appellate decision-making and opinion writing, skills that would prove essential in his subsequent judicial roles. The Ninth Circuit during this period was responsible for a vast geographic area, and the caseload reflected the diverse legal issues arising in the rapidly developing western United States.

McKenna's service on the Ninth Circuit came to an end in 1897 when President William McKinley appointed him to serve as the forty-second Attorney General of the United States. This appointment represented a significant elevation in his career, moving him from the judicial branch back to the executive branch at the highest levels of the Department of Justice. He served as Attorney General from 1897 until 1898, a relatively brief tenure that was cut short by another appointment.

In December 1897, while still serving as Attorney General, President McKinley nominated McKenna to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, filling the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Stephen Johnson Field. The Senate confirmed the nomination on January 21, 1898, by voice vote, and McKenna took the judicial oath of office on January 26, 1898. Aware that his legal education and judicial experience might not fully prepare him for the demands of service on the nation's highest court, McKenna took the unusual step of attending Columbia Law School for approximately one month between his nomination and confirmation, seeking to strengthen his legal knowledge before assuming his new duties.

Jurisprudence and legacy

McKenna's judicial philosophy during his years of federal service, both on the Ninth Circuit and later on the Supreme Court, did not reflect a single consistent theoretical approach to legal interpretation. Nevertheless, his work as a federal judge addressed significant questions of federal power, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation that shaped American jurisprudence during a transformative period in the nation's history.

During his Supreme Court tenure, which lasted from 1898 until 1925, McKenna authored a substantial body of written opinions. He wrote 614 majority opinions and 146 dissenting opinions over the course of his service on the Court. Among his notable majority opinions was the decision in Hipolite Egg Company v. United States in 1911, in which a unanimous Court upheld the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, affirming federal authority to regulate interstate commerce in food and drugs. This decision reflected McKenna's general receptiveness to assertions of federal regulatory power.

Another significant opinion came in United States v. United States Steel Corporation in 1920, where McKenna articulated the "rule of reason" principle in antitrust cases, holding that only monopolistic combinations that unreasonably restrain trade violate federal antitrust law. This approach to antitrust enforcement would influence subsequent interpretations of federal competition law.

McKenna's jurisprudence also addressed questions of federal criminal law and moral regulation. In Hoke v. United States in 1913, he joined the Court in upholding the Mann Act, which prohibited the transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes. However, four years later in Caminetti v. United States in 1917, he dissented from the majority's interpretation that the Act applied to private, noncommercial conduct, arguing that the statute was intended to regulate only commercial vice with a mercenary purpose.

His work also touched on questions of civil rights and federalism, though not always in ways that advanced equality. McKenna wrote the opinion in Williams v. Mississippi, which upheld that state's 1890 Constitution despite its use of poll taxes and literacy tests that effectively disenfranchised African American voters while exempting white voters through a grandfather clause. This decision reflected the Court's broader failure during this era to protect the voting rights of Black citizens in the South.

While McKenna generally favored federal power, he also participated in the Court's substantive due process jurisprudence of the early twentieth century. He voted with the majority in Lochner v. New York in 1905, which struck down a state law limiting working hours for bakery employees, a decision that became emblematic of the Court's willingness to invalidate economic regulations during this period.

McKenna's service on the Supreme Court came to an end in January 1925, when he resigned at the suggestion of Chief Justice William Howard Taft. A stroke suffered a decade earlier had significantly diminished his capacity to perform his judicial duties, and by the end of his tenure his colleagues could no longer rely on him to produce coherent written opinions. McKenna died on November 21, 1926, in Washington, D.C., and was interred at Mount Olivet Cemetery in that city. He had married Amanda Borneman in 1869, and the couple had four children: three daughters and one son. His service in all three branches of the federal government, including his five years on the Ninth Circuit, made him one of only seventeen individuals who served both in the House of Representatives and on the Supreme Court.